What Goes Around

by Rollins, Jack

  “I guess that means it’s time for a new girlfriend,” Jethro admits aloud while walking out of the bathroom without flushing the toilet.

  He walks to the kitchen and retrieves a box of cereal (SUGAR SQUIDS) from atop the pale yellow refrigerator. He reaches into another cupboard, shoves aside several plastic cups and bowls to find a human skull with the top missing. Jethro pours the cereal into the skull, tops it with milk and sits down on his battered and stained couch to enjoy his breakfast. As he eats the sugary multi-colored puffs, he remembers the feisty young runaway whose skull his spoon is scraping. She had fought with all she was worth, but since Jethro had picked her up in an alley where she had been trading blow-jobs for baggies of crystal, he had figured her worth to society was minimal.

  Jethro smiles as he finishes and drops his bowl into the sink, where it disappears amongst all manner of soiled dinnerware. He goes back to his bedroom and grabs his stiff girlfriend. He spares a drawn-out breakup speech and instead hefts her out to the small shack outside, where he hangs her on a hook so he can come back and skin the rotten meat from her bones later. If he hadn’t waited so long and let her skin get so greasy and grey, he could have stretched and tanned her skinned hide. He isn’t much of a tailor, but he has been steadily replacing the battered old lampshades around the trailer one by one with the skin of meth-head hitchhikers and runaways. No time to do it now – he had a new girlfriend to find, and they had all night to have some fun under the swollen moon. His ex would just have to wait until morning to be rid of all that reeking skin and meat.

  Jethro padlocks the shed shut and gives a long suspicious glance around despite the trailer’s remote location high in the Hoo-Doo County hills. Jethro was born in the trailer and has lived in it all his life. The last six years he has been on his own, after his parents drove their beat-up Chevy to town for a night of drinking and fighting. They had drunk at a bar without brawling, but on the drive home, they had a fist-fight while going almost sixty miles an hour on treacherous mountain roads. With his mom and dad gone, there wasn’t anyone to talk Jethro out of his urges, which had started with hurting things and progressed to bodies stacking up.

  Jethro doesn’t remember his father bestowing great wisdom upon him, but he does recall his old man explaining once in a slurred tone, “Ya don’t shit where ya eat, boy.” Jethro could never be completely sure what his dad meant, but he chooses to apply it as ‘don’t torture and kill the meth-head hookers where ya live’. So he thinks himself a good son when he drags his prey out to an old abandoned farmhouse known as the Old Harker Place to have some fun on its sprawling acres. He spends hours hurting them in fun and exciting ways, and often makes love to them several times over the course of the night.

  Of course, Jethro has some attachment issues and after having so much fun with his ‘girlfriends’, he always ends up bringing them home anyways. Hence the dead girl hanging in the shed. Still, he is a creature of habit, and so he lumbers across the yard to his Dodge Aries to cruise town and find a new plaything.

  He may be a beast of instinct, brutal and simple rather than cold and calculating, but still he has his rituals. Jethro likes them skinny, but it doesn’t matter much beyond that because, in his head, she’s one of the many girls who scorned and scoffed at him during his difficult high school years. He felt those specific girls had turned him into what he was today, and if he could ever find one he wouldn’t need to make another lampshade again. But he had heard they had all moved away, and so he couldn’t stop acting out his fantasies with random victims.

  If his new victim is a brunette, he sees her as Arlene Gracias, the foreign beauty; if she has sun-kissed blond hair, she’s Dolly Dingo, the cheerleader; if she has hair as dark as the shadows, she’s Lilian Poe, the rich girl, and if she is a ginger she’ll be Sarah Anne McGee, the pale tease. First he chooses a girl, likens her unto one of the four. Then, on the way out to the Harker Place, Jethro tells her where he is taking her and what happened there once upon a time, under cursed moonlight.

  Jethro cruises away from his trailer and into town. It doesn’t take him long to find someone walking the side of the road. The woman is slender and twitchy, kicking up dust as she stomps. Her hair has streaks of pink and black, with blond teasing at her roots – a mix of Lilian Poe and some exotic punk-rock girl, he supposes. Jethro can see from her heavy steps she is upset, and as he pulls up behind her, she turns and faces him, her mascara running down her cheeks like tears of oil. She rolls her eyes at Jethro’s car, and then looks down the road in the direction she is heading as if to weigh accepting a ride or not.

  Jethro leans out his window to holler at her. “Hey, lady, you need a ride?”

  She turns back to him still half-scowling, obviously expecting the worst from Jethro but still considering his offer. She scratches at scabs on her face, which Jethro imagines was at one time beautiful, and takes a small step in his direction. “Depends. Where are you going?”

  “I was headed over to Stillwater, doing some shopping and shit.”

  She bites her lip; her destination is Stillwater as well. Most likely she is headed to the Randy Goat – Stillwater’s premier low-budget strip joint, one of Jethro’s favorite places to find temporary playthings.

  “Okay, sure, I’ll take a ride. But no creepy stuff, mister, I know the deputy around here real good.”

  “Sure, sure.” Jethro waves away her worries as he steps out to open the door for her. When he stands up straight to his full height of over six feet tall, she cowers slightly and looks back down the road again as if already regretting her decision. He opens her door and stands aside in his best demonstration of gentlemanly behavior. She smiles nervously at him, a feeble smile hidden under scabs and acne, and steps into his car. Jethro closes the door for her, then walks back around and slides into his seat with a malicious smile on his face.

  “You can fiddle with the radio stations if you want to,” Jethro tells her while giving the old stock stereo unit a stab with one meaty finger.

  She nods her appreciation and starts flipping through the frequency dial. She bounces over an oldies song, two top-40 pop stations, and static-clouded hip-hop before settling on a signal from the country music station out of Stillwater. She sings along under her breath while Jethro watches the road. Just as the song ends, Jethro spots the street sign he has been waiting for: Whittleback Road.

  “Oh, damn, lady. I do got to make one stop real quick,” Jethro announces as he cranks the wheel hard and guides his Aries onto the gravel road.

  “Mister, I don’t got time! I have to be to work. If I’m late again I’m gonna get fired! Please, mister, just drop me back off here.”

  Jethro steps on the gas pedal rather than the brake and tells her, “Oh, I wouldn’t go worrying about any of that now.”

  “Okay, look mister, I should have just said it up front, but I’ll blow you for the ride. But only if you turn around right now.”

  “Well…” Jethro says as he rubs at his swollen crotch.

  Her hand is on the door handle as she speaks, and Jethro knows she plans to dive out rather than suck his corpse-reeking manhood – hell, it has happened before. She proves Jethro correct as she leans against the door and wiggles the handle frantically. The handle is disabled, however, and she instead repeatedly slams herself against the door while Jethro fills the car with hateful laughter. Her fear turns to fury and she lunges at him, fingernails clawing at his face. She hisses and spits as she attempts to scrape his eyes from his skull. Jethro laughs through it all.

  He finally gets sick of her attack, reaches up, and grabs her by the side of the head. She screams once before he smashes her head into the dashboard twice and tosses her back against her door. She moans, hurt but conscious.

  “You might as well save some of that feistiness. I like you, Lilian, and I am glad you are my girlfriend now, but if you’re already this spunky I’ll have to put you in the trunk until we get where we’re going.”

  He pauses, hoping she as
ks him where he is taking her, but she merely moans in answer. He pretends she asked anyways.

  “Oh, out to the Old Harker Place, baby. Yeah, that place. They was a Devil-worshipping clan, all right. Ain’t nobody going to bother us out there. Haha! Ain’t nobody but me even still go out there since old Elijah Harker went devil on his family all them years ago. The big old bastard killed all his kin before the sheriff showed up, and when he did Elijah done set himself on fire in front of the lawman. All kinds of sheds and shacks them Harkers had, and they used them proper, so I like to honor them old devil-hollers and use them proper too. You can run and scream and I can chase you down and make you bleed, just like the Harkers used ta. See, them old devil-worshipers cursed the moon out here, so no one can see the sins happening under it.

  “We are gonna have some fun tonight, sweetheart. Ha, at least I am.”

  He pulls over and she lunges at him again, but he punches her in the middle of her face and she slumps back as she was. Feeling her nose crush against his knuckles really gets Jethro’s blood flowing. His throbbing erection makes tugging her out of the car and carrying her to the trunk more difficult. And that proves the first surprise of Jethro’s day.

  The second is mere minutes later when he notices a moving van parked in front of his favorite place to rape and murder and rape again.

  ***

  Jethro left the meth-head runaway in the trunk of his Dodge Aries to investigate further, and hadn’t thought of her since then, not after seeing the family. He has been stalking around the 12-acre Harker property since arriving, watching the new family as they settle into the sprawling two-story farmhouse. He stands in the hip-deep grass, one hand shielding his eyes from the overpowering glare of the full moon above as he watches the teenage girl remove her faded blue sweatshirt. And sure, his other hand is gripped halfheartedly around his manhood, but he is no simple ‘Peeping Tom.’ He considers himself a predator of higher order than that.

  Jethro had kept a safe distance, creeping around the decrepit sheds and shacks dotting the property, careful to remain in the long shadows cast by the willows and aspens while he watched the family unload the van. They’d laughed and joked all the while, calling each other by pet names as they worked. The boy was called Junior, but Jethro didn’t know if that was his real name or if he shared his daddy’s name and preferred answering to ‘Jr.’. The teenage girl was named Alison, but she answered to ‘Sweetheart’, ‘Sis’, and ‘Al.’

  Mom and Alison are prime pieces of sex meat in Jethro’s eyes; with hair so blond it is almost white, they are a pair of Dolly Dingos if Jethro has ever seen one.

  Jethro’s simple mind is a train wreck of twisted perversion, fantasies, and ill-fated kidnapping plots as he watches Alison through her second story bedroom window. She tugs her sweatshirt over her head and tosses it aside, then stands in front of a vanity mirror in her lacy black bra supporting her pert breasts – b cups by Jethro’s best guess. Jethro squeezes his prick as she grabs both breasts, jiggles one up and one down, and then both of them together, as if she is still getting used to the weight and dimensions of her pubescent developments. She scrunches up her pretty face, contorting it into exaggerated expressions as she socializes with imaginary people while still bouncing her breasts with her hands.

  Jethro’s grip tightens. His stroke gains speed and rhythm.

  From his short distance from the house Jethro hears Mom shouting, “Dinnertime!”

  His eyes dart back and forth between Alison’s second story window and the window on the opposite end of the first floor. Mom and Dad bustle about the kitchen, moving plates and platters of food from counters to table. Dad gently sets a casserole dish down and then gives Mom a playful slap on her fabulous ass. Jethro isn’t the only one to catch the heavy-handed flirtation; Junior walks into the kitchen and covers his eyes while exclaiming in disgust with words Jethro can’t quite hear.

  His eyes go back to Alison’s window. Her facial expressions change again, softer, sexier, as she makes immature kissy faces at her mirror. She holds one finger to her lips, shushing her imaginary lover, as her other hand reaches behind her to undo her bra.

  Downstairs, Junior runs from the kitchen, through the living room and up the stairs to his sister’s room.

  “Damn it, Junior!” Jethro complains under his breath as he quickens and tightens his strokes. “I think I am going to kill you first just for ruining my fun.”

  Upstairs, Alison slips the thin bra straps off one shoulder and then the other while cupping her breasts in her hands, effectively denying Jethro a look at the nipples he pictures standing firm between her fingers. Suddenly her bedroom door swings open, and Junior pops his head in. Her brother’s sudden appearance shocks Alison. She lets go of her tits to scream in her brother’s face. Junior flushes red and backs up, apologizing. He sneaks several more glances at his sister’s bouncing breasts as she tries in vain to cover them with flailing arms. She chases him out, screaming at him before slamming the door behind him. Junior slinks back downstairs, shaking his head and absentmindedly rubbing his crotch.

  Up in her room Alison throws her back against the door in order to prevent any more unexpected guests, finally giving Jethro the unobstructed view he has been hoping for. She takes a few deep breaths, her bosom rising and falling with the action, and unbuttons her jeans. She shimmies them, shifting one leg and then the other to slide them down, revealing a pair of lacy black boy-short panties which match her discarded bra.

  The muscles in his forearm burn with frantic effort, and drool slips from the corners of his mouth as Jethro furiously masturbates to the sight of the mostly nude teenager. His stomach tightens, his toes curl within his boots, and his breath grows raspier as his climax nears.

  “Oh, we are going to have some fun tonight, sweetheart. Oh, yeah. Maybe I’ll keep the rest of your family alive just so they can watch us fool around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you nasty little slut…”

  As his dick swells in final preparation of blasting his spoiled spunk all over the ground, he hears something heavy crunching gravel behind him. Jethro curses as headlights bounce at the edges of his vision. He turns towards the intrusion and sees Sheriff Rourke’s rusted Jeep Cherokee bouncing up the long driveway to the Old Harker Place. Jethro keeps his eyes on the Sheriff’s Jeep as it pulls up between the gray sport utility vehicle and the large moving van. As Sheriff Rourke exits the driver’s side, his top Deputy, a trigger-happy son of the Klan named Bobby Dingo, steps out of the passenger side.

  Jethro knows both men well, having attended the first two years of high school with Bobby Dingo before dropping out, and on account of Sheriff Rourke breaking his nose with an elbow that would have done Dusty Rhodes proud for lifting a Penthouse from the old Dino Co. gas station. But as he watches the men, Jethro wants nothing more than to scream at them for interrupting his masturbation session. He stalks through the shadows closer to the porch, but still hidden from sight. Sheriff Rourke knocks on the front door with zero respect for the hour, or the fact the family inside have spent the day moving into their new home. Jethro has heard that same knock, and he manages a small subconscious flinch at the thudding sound. He can see into the kitchen, and watches Mom and Dad exchange a nervous look before Dad drops his napkin next to his plate, scoots his chair away from the dinner table, and excuses himself.

  A moment later, Dad opens the front door to the two police officers standing on his porch. Jethro is close enough to hear the conversation.

  “Uh, hello. Can I help you officers?”

  “Good evening, sir. My name is Sheriff Rourke and this is Deputy Dingo. I apologize for showing up all unannounced…”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid you’ve shown up as we’re eating dinner after a long day of moving.”

  “We’ll be quick enough,” Deputy Dingo snaps with a lazy yet threatening drawl.

  Sheriff Rourke nods his thanks to his deputy and turns back to Dad. “I am here for your safety and your family’s safety, sir, not just making social
calls.”

  “Well, then, is everything okay, officers?” Concern tints Dad’s voice.

  “Sheriff,” Rourke corrects, and then says, “Well, I’m not rightfully sure.”

  Sheriff Rourke rubs the back of his neck, an old nervous habit, and looks at Deputy Dingo as if for advice on what to say next. Bobby Dingo is too busy looking like a tough guy to notice his boss looking at him. Rourke scowls at his deputy and turns back to Dad.

  Mom walks from the kitchen to stand behind her husband. Sheriff Rourke sees her approach and takes off his wide-brimmed hat to greet her. An elbow to his ribs later, Deputy Dingo does the same.

  “Evening, ma’am,” Sheriff Rourke says.

  “Good evening, Sheriff.” Mom nods a greeting at both he and his deputy, then turns to her husband. “Everything okay?”

  “Actually, ma’am,” Sheriff Rourke begins, “I was just about to tell your husband we found a car parked about a mile away, and it don’t belong to the Haskills down the road from ya.”

  “Like an accident?” Dad clears his throat and asks.

  “Nah, nothing like that. Just pulled over to the side of the road by a copse of willows with its trunk wide open. We know who owns it, a local dirtbag named Jethro Sapp, but we don’t know where said dirtbag is at the moment,” Deputy Dingo informs them in a tone of sheer self-important shitheel.

  Jethro feels his face flush red with a flood of emotions. That’s him and his car and his meth-head hitchhiker they are talking about. His thoughts twist and constrict on his sanity until he forces his attention back to the men on the porch.